


Escape Route

by Elsajeni



Category: Star Wars Legends: X-Wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole
Genre: Action/Adventure, Developing Relationship, Donoslane Excursions, F/M, Post-Canon, Relationship Status: It's Complicated, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21618775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsajeni/pseuds/Elsajeni
Summary: "Sure," Kirney says, and then, a little to his surprise, stretches up to kiss his cheek. "Hey. Don't worry about it, okay? Just a weird customer. That's all.""He knew your name," Myn protests, aware as he says it that it's not a very damning argument."My name's on the sign, Myn," Kirney says, her half-smile growing into something warmer, teasing. "But I'll have Tonin look him up, if you'll feel better."They're safe. They're together. They've got a good thing going with the shuttle business. But a customer who knows too much about Kirney Slane might bring it all burning down around them...
Relationships: Myn Donos/Gara Petothel | Lara Notsil
Comments: 17
Kudos: 24
Collections: Star Wars Rare Pairs Exchange 2019





	Escape Route

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Syrena_of_the_lake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrena_of_the_lake/gifts).



Things are going... well. Well enough that Myn is suspicious, antsy; this doesn't seem right for the two of them, things going _smoothly_. But...

But Kirney met him at the Coronet City spaceport with an uncertain, unrehearsed smile on her face, and he didn't see Lara or the ghost of... someone else, but just Kirney, just an old friend who was brave enough to ask for a second chance. To offer him a second chance, for some reason.

He's not sure what he's doing. What he's allowed to be doing. He spends his days in the storefront office Kirney's rented, which is small and cluttered and has an Ewok living in the apartment above it, and starts learning how to operate a shuttle business; he stays in a hotel down the road for the first few days, and then in the guest bedroom in Kirney's place. Every morning over caf they have the same agonizingly awkward conversation about how long he's going to stay, the one where Kirney doesn't exactly _ask_ anything and he doesn't exactly _answer_ anything and they just go around in uncomfortable circles. (And to be fair, he doesn't ask anything, either. And especially not, "When do you want me to leave?", the one stupid question he wants to ask; he can feel it rising up in his throat every morning, and every morning he bites it back and swallows it down, too big a coward to risk finding out the answer.)

On the ninth day, finally, he finds the nerve to say, "Look, I don't— I mean— I don't have other plans. For a while. For, uh, ever."

"Oh," Kirney says, and puts her mug down a little too hard, splashes caf on the table. "So. Then... you'll stay? A while?"

"A while," Myn agrees, and then risks a smile that he's sure is more of a grimace and adds, "As long as you want me, I guess."

So that works out, more or less. And he's getting the hang of the business. And most nights Kirney sits leaned up against him on the couch working on her datapad, her head resting on his shoulder, or they go out somewhere and she tucks her hand into the crook of his elbow as they walk. And once— just once, so far, but that's more than he dared expect, probably more than he deserves— she leans over the back of the couch and catches his face between her hands and kisses him, and for once, for those few long seconds, he's not thinking _it can't last, it'll all fall apart sooner or later_ but something like _it's worth it, it's worth it, it's worth it_.

It's honestly unfair, considering how much time he _does_ spend worrying about when this will all come burning down around them, that he hardly sees it coming when it finally happens.

It goes like this: he answers the holocomm in their little storefront office, and the caller on the other end says, "Oh! Uh. Slane Excursions?"

"Yes," Myn says patiently, although he's literally _just said_ 'Slane Excursions, may I help you'— he's learning that you have to repeat yourself a fair amount, dealing with customers. "How can I help you?"

"I was expecting to speak with Kirney."

Ah. A repeat customer. Well, that's fair; Myn is a new face around here. He doesn't quite like how put-out the stranger sounds about it, though. He puts on his best attempt at a friendly customer-service smile, the one Kolot keeps referring to as 'your human threat display,' and says, "We're expanding the business. Did you want to make a booking?"

"Yes! Yes, of course," the customer says, smiling a little too brightly himself, and Myn talks him through the booking form, and it all goes _mostly_ normally until, at the very end, the customer— Steman Waid, apparently— adds, "One special request. I would very much like to have Kirney as my pilot for this trip. Will she be available?"

Myn gives the screen a suspicious look. But he can't very well say no; at least until they buy a second shuttle, which at this rate will be a while, Kirney pilots _every_ trip. He settles for, "I'll note the request here. Thank you for booking with us!" and disconnects the call.

* * *

He can't find Waid's record in their system, which is odd. Not so odd as to be obviously wrong, not odd enough for the prickle of alarm in his gut to really be reasonable— the business hasn't been running that long, after all, and Kirney's record-keeping was a little... informal at first. But odd.

"Steman Waid," she says, frowning, when he asks. "No. I mean, it's possible I'm just forgetting—"

"You know the favorite liqueurs of planetary governors in systems I've never heard of," Myn points out.

As soon as it's out of his mouth he winces, wondering if that's pushing it too far. They don't, by unspoken agreement, talk about her life before the Wraiths; he's not _exactly_ bringing it up, just mentioning the memory trick, but he's not far from it. But Kirney gives him a little twist of a smile and says, "I know. And I don't forget names. But it's _possible_."

"Yeah." Myn chews his lip. "I guess it is. Uh... have Tonin look into it, maybe?"

"Sure," Kirney says, and then, a little to his surprise, stretches up to kiss his cheek. "Hey. Don't worry about it, okay? Just a weird customer. That's all."

"He knew your name," Myn protests, aware as he says it that it's not a very damning argument.

"My name's on the sign, Myn," Kirney says, her half-smile growing into something warmer, teasing. "But I'll have Tonin look, if you'll feel better. And if he calls again, see if you can record a couple seconds. Maybe I'll know him when I see him."

* * *

The day of Waid's booking arrives, and Waid himself arrives, and Kirney still insists she has no idea who he is; by now it's clear that she's anxious about it, too. But he clearly knows her; he greets her by name, too warmly, and when they're in the same space he watches her too closely, and it puts Myn's teeth on edge.

They've talked through every possibility already: New Republic Intelligence after her for sabotage, Imperial Intelligence after her for desertion, some remaining Zsinj loyalist after her for Iron Fist. Maybe just some freelance blackmailer who's put two and two together somehow. Maybe even someone who really did know Kirney Slane on Coruscant— that was a surprise; he'd assumed 'Kirney' was a new identity— and is just surprised and pleased to see her turn up again. All of them seem equally risky, all of them make Kirney equally tense and jumpy and irritable, none of them shake loose any memories or ideas about how Waid might have found them, and Myn can't stand it another second.

When they're halfway out on the first leg, Coronet City to Tyrena— Waid's itinerary doesn't make any sense, either; one more thing for Myn to dislike about him— he pulls Kirney into the shuttle's cockpit and picks a fight about it.

"Kirney," he says in an undertone, exasperated. "Come on. You can't tell me this guy doesn't know you. You don't forget people. Who the hell is he?"

"I don't know!" Kirney hisses back.

"Kirney, we can't get out of this if you won't _level_ with me—"

"I _am_ ," she insists, and stares up at him, and suddenly the little cockpit space feels too small, the urgent look on Kirney's face crowding out everything else. Crowding out the _air_ ; Myn can't seem to get a breath.

He's seen this look, or something like it, on her before. In a deserted corridor on Hawk-bat Station, tear-streaked, half-panicked— desperate to stay, he knows now, and terrified that Zsinj's attempt to reach out would expose her. Under camouflage netting in a field on Saffalore, telling him to keep away from her, every line of her face saying _stay, stay, don't listen to me_.

Right now, looking up into his face, and what is he doing? Snapping at her to tell him the truth.

"Okay," he says, because it's that simple.

"Myn, I have _no idea_ , I'd swear I've never seen him before—"

"Okay. I know. I believe you." He reaches out to wrap his arms around her— carefully at first, like approaching a wild animal, afraid she'll pull away. But she doesn't, and he lets out a breath and holds her closer. "It's okay. We'll figure it out, we'll get rid of him. I believe you."

* * *

"What if it's not just him? What if he's just the first?"

They mostly haven't talked about it— about Waid and what to do with him— during the stop in Tyrena or the hop over to Selonia. They mostly haven't had the chance; he's done a _little_ bit of sightseeing, but he's mostly sticking close to the shuttle, and anytime he's on board he stays near the two of them, watching Kirney and occasionally asking questions and still not explaining anything.

All the same, Myn doesn't take any catching up. "Then we'll handle it," he says immediately. "Look, we knew this might not last. But whoever Waid is, we'll deal with him. And whoever comes after him, we'll deal with them. And if they don't stop coming, we'll disappear again."

Kirney looks down, the corner of her mouth twisting bitterly. "More running."

"If we have to. If we can't come up with a better plan."

" _We_ ," Kirney says, and stops there.

Myn looks at her, and then looks closer, and says, "No."

"Myn. How long can we keep this up, running and hiding? How long can _you_ keep this up? If one person found me—"

He shakes his head. "You're not turning yourself in, and you're not taking off alone again. Not an option. Think of something else."

" _You_ think of something else."

Myn snorts. "I've got three plans, and you don't like any of them."

"Myn, 'space him in transit' isn't a plan."

"Kolot liked it."

"Kolot doesn't get a vote."

"Why not? He's a partner in this business."

Kirney almost laughs, and then shakes her head, wraps her arms around herself as if she's cold. "Myn, I'm serious. It's not Waid's fault, even if he is here to bring me in. If he is Intelligence, either side, he's just doing his job."

"Not a very nice job."

Kirney gives him that bitter little half-smile again. He's getting to know that smile better than he'd like. "I don't have a lot of room to criticize. And we don't even know that he is. This could all be some kind of misunderstanding, or who knows, maybe he really _did_ meet Kirney— the original Kirney, I mean— at some party and he's just happy to see she's made something of herself. There's too much we don't know."

She's right. He knows she's right. He'd do it, if that's what it comes down to, space Waid or shoot him or strangle him bare-handed if he had to— but he couldn't ask it of her, and he's not sure she'd let him stay if he did it himself.

* * *

The last day on Selonia, Waid finally goes off on his own, on some kind of reef-diving tour. Myn, naturally, takes the opportunity to break into his cabin.

"This is ridiculous," Kirney protests from outside. "What do you think you're going to find? A journal titled 'My Plan To Arrest Kirney Slane For Treason'?"

"Well, yeah, let me know if you see one of those, that would be really helpful," Myn grunts, digging into Waid's luggage. "I don't know, just... there's got to be something, right?"

"Like what?"

"Uh." Myn stares into the bag. "Like... four different identification cards, maybe. All different names. All different systems."

Kirney steps up beside him, picking up a couple of the cards. "All Imperial systems," she says, very quietly.

"None in the name of Steman Waid, either."

"Well, no," a voice puts in from the doorway behind them, "I carry that one with me."

Myn whirls, fumbling at his belt. Kirney is faster; by the time his blaster is in his hand, she's across the room and at Waid's throat, driving him back out of the little cabin. "What do you want?" she snarls. "Why are you after me? I should shoot you now and get it over with—"

"Listen, you don't want to do that," Waid protests. But he backs up against the bulkhead, hands up, eyes wide. Doesn't go for a blaster of his own. Doesn't try to swat Kirney's blaster aside, or wrench it from her hand.

"Who are you?" she demands, pressing closer. "Why were you looking for me? Who's Kirney Slane to you?"

Waid pulls his gaze from the muzzle of her blaster with a visible effort, looks her in the face. She meets his gaze, steady, and holds it, and after a moment he lets out a breath and says, "You really _are_ her."

"Of course I am," Kirney snaps, "how many times—"

"No," Waid interrupts, looking at her with something like wonder. "You're Gara Petothel."

 _No, no, no. Please, I was so careful, I was so happy here..._ Kirney shakes her head, but she knows her face must give her away. She steps back, lowering her blaster just a fraction, her fingers suddenly numb on its grip—

In the same instant Myn's blaster takes its place, muzzle against Waid's throat. He sidesteps between them, free hand coming back to push Kirney behind him.

"Don't," she says, catching his hand, at the same time that Waid, his voice urgent and strained, says, "Wait, _wait_ , I'm on your side—"

"Explain," Myn cuts him off, his voice cold. "Explain _fast_."

* * *

Waid doesn't explain fast. It takes most of the way back from Selonia to get the whole story, Kirney coaxing the details out of him as sympathetically as she can manage. It's a familiar story, painfully so— Intelligence training, an assignment he couldn't stand, the struggle to make sense of what he'd agreed to— and she gets more genuinely sympathetic as he goes on.

"Okay," she says, eventually. "But how did you end up _here_?"

Waid laughs, a little shakily— it's been a long and draining conversation. "You're kidding. You're a legend in Intelligence. A cautionary tale."

Kirney goes cold, the blood draining from her face. "I can't be."

"Not Kirney Slane. I made that connection the hard way— slicing, cross-referencing timelines, a little dumb luck. But Gara Petothel is." He shrugs. "There are a lot of Imperial defectors out there. They don't even really bother pursuing most of them— pilots, junior officers, who really cares? But Intelligence... we don't get away. We don't live long enough to make it to the other side. Except everyone's heard the rumor about the one who did."

"And that's what you want. The secret to getting away." She gives him a bitter little twist of a smile. "There's no secret, you know. Just luck. That's all I had on my side. And... and some people who took a chance on me."

Waid just looks at her.

Right. People who'll take a chance on him. Would she ever have made it, if she hadn't lucked into Wraith Squadron? What shot does Waid have in the galaxy, if not her and Myn?

She sighs, and makes up her mind, and says quietly, "I need you to understand that I can't solve this."

Waid shakes his head. "You did once. You got yourself out. It's... look, I don't have any right to expect you to help me, I get that. But if you won't, just say you won't, and I'll go."

"You're not listening." Her lips thin. "I can get you out, if that's what you came here for. I can get you to the New Republic. I don't know if you think it's going to be _easy_ —"

"For you?"

"For you, idiot. For me, five minutes on the comm. For you..." She shrugs. "I don't know what they'll do with you. Do you know enough to be useful? Have you done enough harm to end up a prisoner? But you'll be out, and you'll be safe enough. Maybe safe in a cell, for a while, but safe."

Waid gives her a thin smile. "So what else do you think I'm asking for?"

"I can't _fix this_." She gestures at him. "What they've done to you. What they've made you into. You have to solve that part yourself."

He's quiet for a while, long enough that she decides he's not going to answer. She's at the door when he says, "How did you do it?"

Kirney stops in the doorway. "I don't know if I have," she admits. "But I'm trying. I will. I think you'll figure it out, too."

* * *

They agree to stick to the rest of Waid's original itinerary; he won't say much about what cover story he used to get there, but evidently the travel is part of it, and it's Myn who points out that, no matter how much they want to get back to Coronet City and be done with this, a major change to their filed flight plans might draw attention Waid doesn't want. So from Selonia it's back across to Corellia, to the mountain resorts around Doaba Guerfel. And in Doaba, Waid heads off to the market plaza, especially crowded at this time of year, and takes Kirney with him. To 'work out some details.' Without Myn.

"Oh, sure," Myn grouses quietly from where he's waiting in the shuttle, well outside of town at the municipal landing zone. "Sure, 'let us go talk about it.' Sure, why _not_ go off with some Imperial maniac you barely know—"

Tonin chirps disapprovingly, interrupting him. Myn sighs, glancing at the scrolling text display, and says, "Yeah, sorry. She knows what she's doing. I just don't like not knowing what's going on down there."

That gets him a more sympathetic whistle, which is something. He fiddles aimlessly with the comm for a minute, glances at the chrono for the thousandth time, and is just opening his mouth to say _Close enough, let's go pick them up_ when the sensor board comes alive with signals.

"Shields!" Myn barks, slapping at the controls in a rush to get them airborne; Tonin warbles back that he's already on it, and suggests they keep a low profile.

Myn ignores him. He hasn't made visual contact yet, but the sensor profiles are unmistakable: a flight of four TIE interceptors, on approach from the southeast and heading straight toward the city, and trailing them, something about the size of his own shuttle, lightly armed but heavily shielded and just big enough to fit a couple of secure cells on board.

Just the right ship to bring back a couple of prisoners.

Okay. Outnumbered, outgunned, out of comm contact with his allies. Resources: one shuttle, its armor and shielding intact but its weaponry stripped down to a single belly-mounted gun; one astromech that doesn't like him much; one brilliant co-conspirator, currently a hundred klicks away and with no safe way to get in touch with her. Oh, and one Ewok, halfway around the planet minding the office while they're gone.

By the numbers, there's nothing he can do.

But then, by the numbers, nothing they ever did with the Wraiths should have worked, either.

"Tonin," he says, not taking his eyes off the sensor display. "I told you about Silly Squadron, right? What kind of tricks can you do with our transponder data? And then let's talk comm encryption..."

* * *

Kirney's datapad beeps, and she pulls it out, glances at the incoming message, double-takes. "Huh."

"Something wrong?" Waid peers over her shoulder at the screen, displaying a contextless string of digits, and frowns. "What's that, some kind of transmission error?"

"You don't know this one, Intelligence boy?" Kirney says, handing him the datapad and pulling out her comlink. "Read me those digits. Slowly."

The code is a straightforward one: a frequency, a decryption key, and a checksum at the end that tells her what adjustments to make to the previous digits. Beaming it across as text cuts down the chance it'll be intercepted, but if anyone is seriously looking for suspicious comm traffic, they'll figure it out pretty quickly; it's a one-use trick, or a desperation move, and Kirney feels anxiety rising in her gut as she adjusts the comlink and sends a single click across the new frequency: _ready to receive_.

"Don't respond." Myn's voice, steady but clipped, tense. "Old friends arriving. Go to ground. We'll meet later."

 _Old friends._ Kirney clicks the comlink again— _received, understood_ — and looks up at Waid to find his face pale and tight with fear.

For just a second she wants to scream at him. He's brought this down on them, on this little life she's worked so hard to build, knowing she was building on sand but trying so hard to keep it together— she was so close to being happy, so close to being _safe_ , and this _idiot_...

This idiot looks so much like she did, those few times she could stand to look in the mirror aboard Zsinj's ship. Terrified and worn thin with exhaustion, and driving himself forward in spite of it, trying to make himself into something worthwhile.

Kirney takes a deep breath, and doesn't scream at him, and says, "We can still win this. But we need to move. _Now_."

* * *

The message to Kirney is the important one, and Myn breathes a little easier once it's dealt with. He uses the same trick a second time, with a different code and frequency, for a quick message to Kolot, and then turns his attention to the shuttle's sensor profile.

He's heading toward the city, slower than the interceptors and carefully angling his course so he doesn't actually meet them— this won't work if they get too good a look at the shuttle, or if they're close enough when he starts transmitting that they catch him before he gets into the mountains. On the other hand, it _really_ won't work if he's too slow, if they catch up to Kirney and Waid before he can draw them off.

By the time Tonin chirps that they're ready, the TIEs are almost at the outskirts of the city. Myn changes course immediately, choosing a conspicuous route out of town and into the unpopulated mountains, and thumbs the comm.

"I'm on my way back," he says, trying to sound younger and more scared than he is. More like Waid, on the off chance the pursuers know his voice. Not that he's expecting his voice to come through that clearly— if Tonin got the programming right, it should sound to the Imperials like they're getting an unintentional signal leak from a faulty, staticky transmitter— but every little bit helps. He glances at the sensor board and adds, "I think they're after me. You've got to help me!"

"Anyone following?" Kolot replies. Even to Myn, he sounds a little crackly over this distance; hopefully the poor transmission quality will help keep the Imperials from noticing anything strange about his voice. Especially if he keeps his messages short.

"Not yet," Myn says, checking the sensors again. He pulls a little further out of the standard traffic lane, trying to make himself as noticeable as possible...

And two of the dots on the sensor board break off and start his way. Keeping any hint of relief out of his voice, trying his best to sound terrified, he says, "Oh, sithspit, they are now. I'll never make it in this thing."

"Land and hide," Kolot advises. "No weapons on that ship. No way to fight."

That wasn't in the bare-bones script they hashed out; it's an improvisation, and a good one. _He really would have made a good Wraith_ , Myn reflects, and transmits back, "You're right. I'm going to ground. Waid out," as he drops the shuttle into a sheltered valley.

He doesn't feel entirely easy about it, luring the TIE pilots into an ambush. It's why he became a pilot in the first place: he likes a fair fight, doesn't really feel right picking off some poor sap who never knew he was there. Playing defenseless— between his transmissions and his faked-up sensor profile, they should be convinced he's weaponless— isn't quite the same thing, but it's close enough.

But these pilots are coming for Kirney. These pilots are on their way to burn her down, or to drag her off to a cell somewhere— to take her away from him, one way or another.

And one of them does get a targeting lock on him, in the second before he blows them both out of the sky. So it wasn't _that_ unfair of a fight, really.

"Okay," he says to Tonin, flipping the comm back to its normal settings. "Next trick. What's worth blowing up around here?"

* * *

By the time they're fully into the market, far enough to blend into the crowds, Kirney thinks she can see the dots of incoming ships on the horizon. More than one, so they'll be transmitting— she links the datapad and comlink, starts cycling through frequencies.

It's tricky, without Tonin. She's out of practice at this sort of thing. But, it occurs to her, Waid isn't.

She shoves the datapad into his hands and says, "Make yourself useful. Can you get us their frequency, without tipping them off that we're listening?"

It's not a test; she's already sure of him, and anyway, if she can't trust him, it's beyond too late. Waid seems to take it as one, though, working fast on the datapad's keys and flickering anxious glances in her direction.

Overhead, the ships are close enough to count. People around them are starting to notice them, too, pointing up at the sky and scattering into the market stalls— Imperial raids aren't too distant a memory here. Kirney grabs Waid's arm and ducks into a nearby clothing stall, following the crowd; under the circumstances, better not to stand out.

The TIEs pass overhead with a roar and loop around in the distance, the shuttle tailing them— and then, suddenly, they split up, the shuttle coming back over the market alone and the two interceptors arrowing off toward the east.

Kirney looks at Waid, raises her eyebrows in a silent question. He's got the comlink to his ear, apparently having found the frequency, and he frowns, shrugs. "They say they're breaking off to deal with some trouble at the resort. Someone shooting at passenger yachts. Another trick?"

"No," she says, and then reconsiders— it would be _stupid_ for Myn to try something like that, but that doesn't mean he _wouldn't_.

She's opening her mouth to say _Actually, it could be..._ when Waid lowers the comlink and says, wide-eyed, "Oh, _shavit_."

"What?" Kirney demands.

"That shuttle that was tailing the interceptors— they're going to land and try a ground search. They know we're in the city. And they have a tracker."

* * *

Myn circles around the resort again, keeping one eye on the sensor board. He's been lucky so far— he was expecting to have to deal with some private security, but apparently the resort has to call city security forces for this kind of thing, and the inbound TIEs were closer as well as faster.

He takes another potshot at the yachts on the landing pad, aiming carefully to miss, and lets out another wild yell over the comm. The TIEs on the sensor screen are coming closer, closer...

"Now!" he barks at Tonin, and at the same time slews hard on the rudder and points the shuttle's nose at the ground, diving down below the treeline just before the TIEs come into visual range. He swings around the back side of the resort, cutting the curve a little closer than he should, and pops back up into a lane of small-craft traffic just as Tonin's whistle tells him their transponder and sensor profile are switched back to the innocent, unarmed version. Just another tourist shuttle enjoying the mountain views.

Over on the other side of the resort, the TIEs are spreading out into a search pattern. Myn gives the droid a sharp-toothed grin— _human threat display_ , he thinks, and laughs. "Look at that, Tonin, they're looking for a crash site. Should we go let them know we're still alive?"

Maybe he should have been happier about the ambush; in a fair fight, two interceptors is more interceptors than he really cares to take on by himself. Even if he had his X-wing, it would be a risky move, one he'd really like to have a wingmate at his side for— and all the riskier like this, flying an under-armed shuttle that can't hope to match them on maneuverability. But somewhere back in Doaba, Kirney is stranded, lying low, with even less chance of fighting her way out than he has, and every fighter he can take out is one less to come after her. One less to try to take her away from him.

Myn bares his teeth and launches the shuttle back toward the landing area, already sighting in on the nearest TIE.

* * *

From somewhere to the north there's an animal howl, and then screams. Kirney grabs Waid and starts moving away from it on instinct, hissing at him, "A tracker?"

"Adkadirian stalkhound," he clarifies, not that it helps much. "Hunts by scent— pheromones, something like that. Useful, but hard to control. Not, uh... not reliable if you want the person you're tracking alive."

"Oh," Kirney says. "Sithspit."

They keep moving, listening— screams and shouts track the creature's progress through the market, and Kirney uses them as a guide, trying to put as much distance between them and the noise as possible. But the shouts are getting closer. And they're running out of cover, approaching the edge of the market. There's got to be some other way out of this, there's got to be...

She spots a produce stand, and drags Waid to a halt beside it, an idea forming. "Okay," she says, trying to sound calm and aware that she's failing. "New plan. Go buy four of those melons."

"What?"

"Don't argue!" She shoves him toward the stand, and then looks around, gauging the width of the aisle, the heights of the surrounding stalls. This _might_ work. Maybe.

By the time he comes back with an armful of melons, she's developed a plan. "All right," she says, pushing him out into the busiest walkway. "Here you go, great work, lots of pheromones, you definitely went down this path. Right? Smash a melon."

" _What_?"

"What did I say about arguing?" She takes one of the melons from Waid's hands and throws it to the ground, smashing it. The path fills with a heavy, sweet-musky smell, not unpleasant but so strong it's almost overwhelming. Kirney steps through the smashed melon, pulls Waid after her, and says, "Great. Another one, over there."

Most people, as she watches, step around or over the melon pulp. But there are plenty who aren't paying attention or don't care, who step into it and track it on in whatever direction they're going. And with three more melons smashed on the ground nearby, there should be dozens of confusingly similar, strong, sweet-musky scent trails for the tracker to follow. And, importantly, hers and Waid's are two of them.

The shouting is getting close. People are starting to _run_ down the pathway, and hardly any of them are trying to avoid the melon pulp on the ground anymore. "Okay," Kirney says hurriedly, "we have to move."

She leads Waid down the dead-end alleyway behind a stall, where there's a stack of crates that a reasonably agile person could climb to the stall's roof, and shoves him at it. Then she crosses to the other side of the alley and climbs up a different way, to the roof of a different stall. And waits.

The stalkhound, when it shows up, is less terrifying than she expected. Yes, it's a six-legged beast with sharp teeth; it's also about a meter long and skinny, and gives the impression that a swift kick would put it out of commission pretty effectively. But Waid, across the walkway, flattens himself against the roof in what looks like genuine terror as the crowd scatters and the creature circles uncertainly.

There's a handler following it, giving sharp commands in an unfamiliar language. Kirney watches, holding her breath— the stalkhound keeps coming back to the spot where she smashed the first melon, following a trail away, circling back again.

Then its whole posture changes, and it _sprints_ down the alley below her and launches itself toward the crates where Waid climbed up.

"Oh, sithspit," Kirney mutters, grabs at her blaster and snaps off a shot in its direction— a hit, she thinks, but it's still moving toward Waid; hopefully she's at least slowed it down— and drops off the roof to land on its handler when he turns the corner.

He's not expecting her; that's an advantage. But he recovers fast, knocking her blaster from her hand, and that's the advantage lost. She narrows her focus to just the fight, forgetting about Waid and the creature after him, forgetting about Myn, wherever he is, keeping the TIEs busy. She almost forgets about Kirney; for a few long seconds she's Lara again, in a training gym aboard Mon Remonda, finally getting the hang of the move Shalla's been trying to show her.

And then she's standing over the handler's body, out of breath, shaking but not badly hurt.

Waid. She should find Waid.

She steps back into the alley, starts toward the stack of crates, and finds him already on his way down, the stalkhound lying limp on the roof behind him. He's bruised and bloodied, one arm held close against his chest, but he manages a smile when he sees her, and the first thing he says is, "You owe me twenty credits for those melons."

Kirney laughs, and can't stop laughing, and it takes a long time for either of them to calm down enough to call Myn.

* * *

"I'm sorry about this," Waid says, back on the shuttle, once they've got him in the bunk and bacta patches on the worst of it. "I know that doesn't really help, but I am. I didn't want to bring trouble down on you. I thought I'd covered my tracks better than that."

Kirney huffs a laugh and pats him on the shoulder. "Yeah, well. You and me both."

Waid nods. "For what it's worth, I really think they were just after me. It took a lot of work and a lot of luck for me to find the name Kirney Slane. Not just anyone could have done it. And even if they did, I, uh... I scrambled a lot of records on my way out. Deleted most of what led me to you. I can't promise anything, but I don't think they knew you were... you."

"Well, that's something," Myn says, which is about as positive as he's willing to get under the circumstances: _Wow, on your way to ruin our lives, you took the time to make it slightly harder for the next idiot to ruin them? Thanks, you're a real pal._

"Thank you," Kirney says, and she sounds more like she means it. Well, she's a better actor than he is.

They leave Waid to get some rest and head for the cockpit— not that there's much privacy anywhere on board, but with the cockpit door shut their conversation shouldn't be loud enough to keep him awake, and they can enjoy at least the illusion of not being overheard.

Kirney seals the door, turns around and says, "So."

"First things first," Myn says, reaching for her. He feels terribly shaky all of a sudden, and once she's in his arms he half-turns and shuffles around, towing her with him, finds a spot where he can lean back against the bulkhead and shut his eyes and bury his face in Kirney's hair.

"It's okay," she says into his shoulder. She sounds about as steady as he feels, but she's warm and solid and real in his arms, and he forces himself to focus on that. That they're alive. Safe. "Myn, I'm okay."

"I know. Just give me a minute." He can't get his breath, can't get himself under control. "Nine hells, _Kirney_ —"

"I know. I know. We're okay."

Eventually— it feels like a long time— he manages one deep, steady breath, and then another, and slowly settles back into himself. Kirney's still in his arms, her hands warm on his shoulders; as he eases his grip around her waist, he can feel her shift against him, and when he opens his eyes she's leaning back a little, looking up into his face. She smiles when he meets her eyes, and says, "Hey. Hi."

"Hi," Myn says, feeling kind of ridiculous. "Sorry."

"Don't be." She reaches up to wrap her arms around his neck, kisses him on the cheek, then— lightly, quickly— on the lips, and then pulls back and gives him a searching look. "You're okay?"

He clears his throat. "Uh. Yeah. So... what do we do about Waid?"

"I've been thinking about that," Kirney says, and gives him a hesitant smile. "I think we need to call some old friends."

* * *

It goes... smoothly, actually. It takes a while to get a direct line to Face— Myn absolutely refuses to deal with anyone else in New Republic Intelligence, not willing to take the risk of somehow exposing Kirney— and then a while longer to explain the situation, but two days later Face, Shalla, and a new Wraith he doesn't recognize turn up in person to collect Waid (Shalla handcuffs him, but politely), and... that's it. The situation is dealt with. They're out of it.

"Hey," Face says on his way out, almost an afterthought, and claps Myn across the back. "What's the deal, don't I get to meet your business partner?"

"She's, uh," Myn starts, fumbling for an excuse— sithspit, he's been expecting this question, he's thought up a half-dozen possible answers, and now that he needs one he can't remember what any of them were. "It's... not a great time."

Face looks around the empty office. "Let me guess. Busy season."

"It's never so busy we can't make time for old friends," a voice says from the back office, and then— _no no no, what are you doing, we talked about this_ — Kirney is stepping up beside him, her hand extended, a warm and completely convincing smile on her face. "You must be Face? Myn wouldn't tell me much about you. Kirney Slane."

Myn tenses, jaw tight, holding his breath. He has one hand half-extended, ready to pull Kirney behind him— he thinks they can trust Face, he'd _like_ to trust Face, but...

"Good to meet you," Face says, with a broad, easy smile and absolutely no sign that he's ever seen Kirney before in his life. "Slane, right— you're the one on the sign. So, business partners?"

"Something like that," Myn says, trying to sound natural and not at all sure that he's succeeding.

Kirney tilts her head, looking up at him, and says with a grin, "Let's just say partners."

"Uh," Myn says eloquently, and then, before her smile can turn uncertain, "Yeah. Partners." He can feel a grin spreading across his own face, an easy, natural one. Not the kind of thing anyone could describe as a _human threat display_ , for once.

Face laughs and claps him on the shoulder again. "Congratulations, I guess. Hey, I'll get out of your hair, I just wanted to say I'm glad you called. This guy Waid is lucky he ran into you, you know? Not everyone gets a second chance like that."

Myn glances down at Kirney— still smiling up at him, her posture completely at ease for maybe the first time since he's known her, her hand reaching out to slip into his— and thinks about second chances, and says, "Yeah. Lucky him."


End file.
